<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2016 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
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 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'They tried to take it back.',
	'body' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2016/11/21.jpg" alt="Bank of the Cascades" class="weblog-header-image" width="811" height="480" />
<h2 id="general">General news</h2>
<p>
	I filled the bathtub with my laundry, then with hot water.
	While it was soaking, I set out and completed the hours-long walk to Bank of the Cascades, Oregon Community Credit Union, then home.
	Once home, I only had a couple of hours to rest before work, but instead of actually <strong>*getting*</strong> to rest, I instead cleaned my laundry by hand, hung it to dry, hand-washed a load of dishes, then worked on my apartment application some more.
</p>
<p>
	The shift leader from yesterday apologized again, saying that I&apos;d worked plenty hard yesterday.
	I&apos;m glad to know that my efforts to get on their good side paid off! Later, they explained the situation to me, and why they had been so frustrated yesterday.
	There are mainly two workers that often work during the shifts that this shift leader is in charge that are problematic.
	They&apos;re incompetent, unable to work certain stations of the work floor alone, and they work quite slowly.
	The shift leader considers these people to be &quot;half workers&quot;.
	They head manager, who decides everyone&apos;s schedules, keeps assigning these two to work during this shift leader&apos;s night shifts, especially the ones on Sundays, then complaining that the man-hour-to-profit ratio is too low.
	When that other person got called off instead of the morning crew sending me home, a known-good worker wasn&apos;t coming in.
	I was a wild card, as the shift leader didn&apos;t know me yet.
	I worked well enough to earn myself some extra hours tomorrow though, which is good, but also unfortunate.
	Tomorrow was my day off, and I need that day off to finish up my coursework.
</p>
<p>
	At this fast-food pizza restaurant, we cook pizzas before they&apos;re ordered, then store them in a warmer until they don&apos;t look good any more.
	At that point, we get rid of them and replace them.
	We also get rid of any pizzas that come out of the oven burnt.
	I&apos;m not sure of exactly which was happening, but one of the people working the ovens and warmers was having trouble deciding whether to keep a specific pizza or throw it out.
	The shift leader told that that if they don&apos;t like the pizza, they shouldn&apos;t sell it.
	By that, they of course meant that if a pizza wasn&apos;t of a high enough quality that they&apos;d want to buy it themself, they shouldn&apos;t put/leave it in the warmer to be sold.
	However, I asked if that meant that if I don&apos;t like bacon, I shouldn&apos;t sell the three meat pizzas.
	At first, they seemed to take me seriously, but then they realized that I was only joking.
	But yes, I still have to sell them.
	Darn.
</p>
<p>
	My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
</p>
<h2 id="include.d"><a href="https://git.volatile.ch./y.st./include.d/releases">include.d</a></h2>
<p>
	I finished up the implementation of the <code>__set_state()</code> method on all include.d classes aside from the $a[URI]-handling classes and those that make use of resource handles.
	Resource handle classes won&apos;t be getting this functionality at all.
	As for the $a[URI] classes, this is going to take a major overhaul of the $a[URI]-handling $a[API].
	Again.
	Maybe one of these days, I&apos;ll actually get it right.
	In my defense though, this time, it&apos;s because $a[PHP] has magic classes that don&apos;t play by the rules.
	Specifically, the <code>\\Closure</code> class breaks the property/method visibility rules.
	I&apos;ve got to rewrite the $a[URI]-processing code to limit the potential damage caused by this.
	I could write up a quick implementation of <code>__set_state()</code> that doesn&apos;t involve this unrelated fix, but if I did that, I&apos;d have to rewrite a new post-fix implementation later anyway.
	It&apos;ll be easier just to fix it all in one go.
	While I&apos;m at it, I can fix the component-setting methods of these classes.
	Specifically, the <code>\\st\\y\\uri::set_scheme()</code> method works fine for generic $a[URI]s, but as soon as you get into building classes that handle the syntaxes of specific schemes, this method has to be overwritten with one that always throws exceptions to basically dummy the method out.
	What kind of nonsense is that? I&apos;ll have the method return a modified clone of the $a[URI] object, leaving the original object unmodified.
	Classes that implement specific schemes can then overwrite that to return objects of the correct classes instead of killing off methods that are expected to be there.
	For consistency, this same behavior will be implemented for other setters, such as <code>\\st\\y\\uri::set_host()</code>; all setters will return modified clones, leaving the original $a[URI] object untouched.
</p>
<h2 id="university">University life</h2>
<p>
	I should have read some of next week&apos;s reading assignment today at work on my break, but I was tired from my all-day walk.
	Instead, I just sat and ate a delicious meal of leftovers from two days ago at the grill.
	I&apos;m in a different position than last term though, as far as reading assignments go.
	Last term, I had no way to know what the next week&apos;s readying work would be.
	This term, we have an actual text book, so I can make a pretty educated guess as to what to read next.
</p>
<p>
	Once home from work, I was going to finish up my discussion assignment, but my mother wanted to sit and talk for about an hour.
	After that, I just really wanted to get to bed, so I&apos;ll work on my discussion assignment tomorrow when I have more energy.
</p>
<h2 id="apartment">Apartment hunting</h2>
<p>
	I went to the Bank of the Cascades website, trying to find out if they have a branch that&apos;s closer to home than their Gateway Mall branch.
	However, their list of branches said that there aren&apos;t any branches in Springfield! The nearest listed branch was in Eugine.
	I don&apos;t have time to walk there and i don&apos;t have a bicycle any more.
	That got left at Coos Bay because we didn&apos;t have space for it in the moving van.
	I decided to use the bank&apos;s online contact form to try to reach them, but it asked for my preferred branch.
	On their list of branches was &quot;Springfield Gateway&quot;! One of the two was out of date, and I couldn&apos;t be sure which.
	I decided to take the risk and walk to Gateway.
</p>
<p>
	Had I known the area better at the time, I could have combined errands in this trip.
	I have a SELCO Community Credit Union membership card with my name on it that I found from over a decade ago.
	It&apos;s probably from about <strong>*two*</strong> decades ago.
	My mother once had an account for me there.
	If I had brought the card, I could have checked to see if the account still exists.
	My best guess is that it does not, but I&apos;ve been meaning to make sure.
	I was also in the area of a post office.
	I could have prepared a copy of my tax return from last year to send to the Oregon Health Plan people.
	On the way, I also say a couple apartment complexes on Harlow Road, and so many apartment complexes on Gateway Street that it was hard to tell where one complex ended and another started! At some point, when I have the day off or something, I should check on those complexes to find their prices and requirements.
</p>
<p>
	Once at the bank, the representatives there were very helpful.
	At first, they thought that they had a way to bypass the ridiculous telephone call requirement for setting up the online account.
	After working with it a while though, they realized what was actually going on.
	When websites demand two-factor authentication via telephone, it&apos;s deplorable.
	For starters, requiring that anything that should be secure be done over insecure telephone lines is disrespectful to your users, puts them at risk, and denies service to people without telephone service.
	However, if I understand what the representatives told me today, Bank of the Cascades takes it a step further: <strong>*one*</strong>-factor authentication via telephone! That code that they wanted to send me was their way of logging me in.
	Password aren&apos;t used at all.
	<strong>*Every*</strong> time that I want to log in, I&apos;d have to do so via telephone! I officially have telephone service now, but there is <strong>*no way*</strong> that I&apos;m doing something a sensitive as logging into my bank account via an insecure method such as using a telephone line.
	Furthermore, unless I&apos;m desperate, you don&apos;t get to demand a telephone number out of me and still keep my business.
	Financial institutions are replaceable; I even already have an account at two others.
	There is no reason for me to keep an account at Bank of the Cascades if they&apos;re going to behave this way.
</p>
<p>
	I have now closed the account.
	Now, I don&apos;t have to worry about that account on my apartment application.
	Better yet, I had more funds in that account then I knew, so after walking to Oregon Community Credit Union to deposit them (along with my paycheck from yesterday), I will now be more likely to be eligible as a renter when I report my financial account balances.
</p>
<p>
	When I first set up my First Tech Federal Credit Union account, they representatives told me that my highest-interest option was to set up a checking account, even though they only pay high interest if you meet qualifications that they knew that I don&apos;t meet, such as making a high enough number of purchases via a debit card every month.
	As I told them, I pay in cash only.
	(I also pay using a card online, but only on my Discover card, because it has my real name instead of my legal name.
	Additionally, I don&apos;t make enough online purchases anyway to qualify, even if I did use a First Tech debit card instead.) They insisted that even without the interest boost, the interest was higher than other options.
	This was a lie.
	After reading over the paperwork that they gave me, I found that they had a savings account option with better interest, so I started up a savings account and transferred my money there.
	However, I hadn&apos;t done it quite quick enough.
	I actually received interest on that account based on its previous balance, and since then, there&apos;s been two cents in that checking account.
	I&apos;ve been ignoring those two cents because I didn&apos;t care enough to bother with them, but today, I transfered them to my savings account.
	That way, I don&apos;t have to report a two-cent balance on my apartment application.
	When I was logging into my account online, I was shocked to see that First Tech had started demanding telephone number verification to log in like Bank of the Cascades is! However, I was quick to jump to conclusions.
	The credit union wants you to use a telephone number by default, but also offers the option of using a code sent to an email address to verify who you are as well.
	And while unencrypted email isn&apos;t secure, just like the telephone lines aren&apos;t, at least First Tech isn&apos;t attempting to use those codes to <strong>*replace*</strong> passwords.
	Both the sent code and the password are needed in order to log in.
</p>
<p>
	With my account balances now accessible, I finished filling out the rental application that even the representative at the apartment complex admitted was long-winded.
	I didn&apos;t think that it was that bad when I first looked at it, but now that I&apos;ve filled it out, I see that it took me <strong>*five days*</strong> to get ahold of all the information that they wanted.
	On my way to work, I turned it in.
	It&apos;s been a long day, but with that, I&apos;m one step closer to finding a place to live.
	Even if other rental applications are this long-winded, at least now, I have the information that they might be asking for.
</p>
<p>
	I took the rental application to the representative on my way to work.
	They informed me that if I&apos;d be fine moving to Eugine, a space would likely open up much more quickly.
	It&apos;s not like I have a choice, so I agreed.
	It sounds like some of the apartments with this group in Eugine are better than the one here in Springfield though! The only issue is the difficulty in getting my stuff there, the difficulty in making the commute to work here in Springfield, and the search for a new job in Eugine.
	The property manager told me about several available complexes, but the one that they went into detail about is a high-rise that rents single-bedroom apartments for \$660 per month - and that includes water, sewer, electricity, trash service, and Internet service! It seems that some of the apartment complexes that they&apos;re going to forward my application to have studio apartments as well, which would also lower my housing bill.
	I don&apos;t need anything fancy.
	I just need shelter, water, and probably electricity.
	The rest, I can manage without if I can&apos;t afford it.
	Well, mostly.
</p>
<p>
	My mother wanted progress reports on my apartment situation, so I&apos;ve been providing them.
	After today&apos;s progress report, they tried to take back their decision that I need to find my own place.
	They said that if I met certain requirements, I didn&apos;t have to leave.
	So I told them that if I was staying, I had some requirements too.
	They needed to stop being so over-controlling, for example, with my hairdo.
	They&apos;ve threatened to kick me out in the past if I get a hairdo that they don&apos;t like.
	They started getting weird though, saying that if I was going to be that way, I can just leave after all.
	As far as I can tell, my hard time limit no longer applies, but I still very much need to find a place and get out.
	It&apos;s long overdue; this isn&apos;t a healthy living environment.
	My mother did bring up a very good point though.
	I need to take into account the proximity to a laundromat ant the availability of washing machines at my new apartment before choosing it.
	If I can&apos;t wash my clothing, there&apos;s going to be a problem.
</p>
<p>
	Also, my mother says that they won&apos;t try to contact me because it&apos;s too difficult to reach me via telephone.
	I don&apos;t stand by the telephone all day, so it sometimes takes me a while to get back to them.
	Instead, they say that if I want contact with them, I&apos;m going to have to be the one reaching out.
	That&apos;s fine with me, that means that I can choose a better contact medium.
	As for being reachable via telephone, it&apos;s like they think that I <strong>*want*</strong> people to reach me that way so I should <strong>*want*</strong> to make it easy to do that.
	I can&apos;t stand the telephone number system and I&apos;m not really a huge fan of voice calling, so no, I&apos;m not going to bend over backwards to make it easy to reach me via one of my least-favorite contact methods.
</p>
<p>
	For the record, living on my own will be a pain.
	I&apos;m aware of that.
	However, I&apos;m so close to breaking.
	My mind, my spirit ...
	I don&apos;t know how much longer I can stand to be here.
	Even if I fail at first, living on my own will give me a chance to break free of the chains that bind me here; a chance to not be constantly ridiculed for actually caring, for putting the good of the world above the good of the few.
	I&apos;ll be free to be me, free to stretch my arms and explore that it means to <strong>*be*</strong> me, without judgment, without fear of losing my home simply because I &quot;misspoke&quot;, refused to eat corpses, or cut my hair differently.
	I just want ...
	to be what I really am, not what my mother wishes that I was.
</p>
END
);
